Attorneys for former President Donald Trump asked a New York judge to vacate his recent order blocking parties from filing new motions, arguing the order “violates” several state court mandates.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan is presiding over a criminal case Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is prosecuting against President Trump over allegedly falsifying business records.
Among the issues the defense wanted to raise before the judge cut off new court filings were presidential immunity and prosecutorial misconduct.
“The Sixth Amendment similarly forbids the outcome anticipated by the Order,” they wrote. “President Trump has a right to defend himself at all stages of this case, including by filing motions clearly allowed under the law.”
While the statutes state that judges can set their own calendars to a large degree, it also mandates courts to “entertain and decide on its merits, at any-time before the end of the trial, an[y] appropriate pre-trial motion [a] based upon grounds of which the defendant could not, with due diligence, have been previously aware, or [b] which, for other good cause, could not reasonably have been raised” under certain deadlines, the defense argued.
In a letter to the judge, the defense attorneys said his March 8 order, and “further direction in Friday’s night e-mail correspondence, violates these mandates.”
“It cannot be that a criminal defendant can be denied the right to file a motion,” defense attorneys argued. “And it cannot be that a criminal defendant is required to fully articulate the bases, both factually and legally, for such motion in a single-page submission to the Court.”
March 8 Email
On March 7, defense attorneys filed a motion to exclude evidence and for an adjournment based on presidential immunity.On the question of whether President Trump is covered by presidential immunity before the Supreme Court via a separate criminal case, the New York attorneys asked Justice Merchan to wait for the high court’s imminent decision as it could inform the case before him.
The motion was made public on March 11.
In response, Justice Merchan had blocked the filing of new motions.
He later agreed to adjourn trial 30 days, scheduling a hearing for March 25 instead.
Around the time defense attorneys filed the presidential immunity-related motion, they also accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office of misconduct, and asked for sanctions, “including dismissal.”
Less than three weeks before trial, the defense had been given two batches of discovery totaling 104,000 pages, and argued that prosecutors had actively tried to prevent their access to this material, which they had sought since last November.
To complicate matters, the prosecution and defense submitted different narratives and timelines surrounding this discovery production to the court.
While admitting no guilt, prosecutors agreed to a 30-day delay of the trial, which the judge granted.
The March 8 motion for discovery sanctions was initially rejected, however. The defense had sent the judge a pre-motion letter, affirmation letter, and proposed 48-page motion.
“It appears you misunderstood this Court’s earlier Order,” Justice Merchan replied to defense attorney Todd Blanche via email.
“Your premotion letter is accepted. If the People wish to respond, they will be given until Monday to do so. I will then decide whether to permit you to file a motion,” the judge continued.
“To be crystal clear, so there is no confusion, your motion is not accepted at this time and you may not file a motion unless and until this Court expressly authorizes you to do so. Therefore, nothing should be filed with the Court, redacted or otherwise.”
On March 15, the judge adjourned the upcoming trial, scheduling the March 25 hearing on “the specific issue of Defendant’s motion to dismiss on the grounds of the People’s alleged discovery violations related to the production of records by USAO-SDNY.”
